


The Quiet Can't Bury Me

by Shi_3



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Bad Templars (Dragon Age), Mage (Dragon Age) Rights, Mr. Wiggums as a Hallucination, No Love Allowed In The Circle, Sensory Deprivation, Solitary Confinement, The Circle IS a Prison, There Are Reasons Anders Won't Shut Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_3/pseuds/Shi_3
Summary: Anders has been told all his life to be quieter. To be quiet like the dead.But Anders was never good at being quiet.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	The Quiet Can't Bury Me

It’s quiet.

It’s all he can think about lately. He obsesses over every noise that he can hear. Every little creak or groan of the tower that can make it past the double layer of stone surrounding him. The faint hum of the enchantments that suppress his magic, safely tucked away by that first layer of stone.

He’d taken long ago to sitting by the door, ear pressed against the thick wood, and straining to hear Mr. Wiggums on the other side. Mr. Wiggums was an elusive sort of creature though. Perfect for a mouser, but Anders had often wished the cat was a bit louder. A bit more cuddly. The cat just liked to lightly brush up against his legs or his elbow, lightly enough that Anders sometimes thought he might not actually be there. He never meowed either. Sometimes he just sat beyond the door and purred. It wasn't much, just enough to let him know that he wasn’t actually all alone in the dark. Mr. Wiggums wouldn’t tolerate pets either. He always scampered off if Anders reached out for him. He wasn’t sure how Mr. Wiggums got in and out his cell as often as he did, he guessed some sort of hole. He’d never found it, but blindly feeling the stones in the dark left a wide margin for error. It could have also been through the slot somehow. 

It didn’t really matter now. Mr. Wiggums is gone, taken by Rage. At least by the sounds of it he’d taken a few Templars with him. Three maybe, if he had to guess by the faint screaming. 

Still, even though there is no Mr. Wiggums, he finds himself siting near the door. Straining to hear the occasional clank of Templar armor or the faint murmur of voices. Maybe even raucous laughter. The noises that have haunted his nightmares, the clank of Templar armor and their cruel laughter as they drag him back to the Circle or punish him, but he absolutely craves it now. Whenever they bring food and open the slate, the sudden rush of noises drives him wild. The breathing of another living being, the screech of their Templar armor, even their damned laughter or sharp rebukes when he starts screaming at them is glorious. But it never lasts long. 

It’s so very quiet. 

It blankets him like the darkness does. Heavy. Oppressive. Absolutely unrelenting. It’s like the kind of darkness that your eyes can never adjust to, no matter how long you sit in it.

He hates it. 

It’s quiet enough that he can hear  _ himself. _ The beat of his own heart. His organs gurgling and churning. Sometimes he thinks he can even hear the blood rushing in his veins or the click and grind of his bones shifting as he breaths. By the Maker, his breathing. Lungs swelling and bellowing, and it seems very loud now.

He’s never been quite so glad that he is loud, even without trying, because this oppressive silence is trying to smother him. It’s trying to mold him into something like itself. Honestly, it’s trying to kill him.

He’s not too familiar with death, but he’s seen it in the infirmary before. He’s more familiar with it than most of the other mages in the Circle. People aren’t quiet. People are so very loud, even when dying. Even in sleep. Even when they swallow their cries and their noises and try to be silent. They can’t. There’s just something about living things, they’re  _ loud. _ It’s only the dead things that are truly quiet. 

He really doesn’t like the quiet. 

He never has, even before knowing what death really looked like. Even though he’s been told to be quiet ever since he can remember.

He can still hear his father saying it. Down from bed. In from the fields. At the table. Stern and strong and commanding him to  _ be quiet or get out.  _

He’d always choose the latter. He had enough friends in his village that he didn’t mind leaving the house. His friends liked him loud.

When he had to help his father work though, then there was no  _ getting out. _ There was just demand that he be quiet. That was why he preferred helping his mother, who sang as she stitched and who traded him animated stories and who laughed like a goose. She wasn’t quiet. She didn’t like silence either. 

She wasn’t the one who gave him to the Templars though.

There’s only one time in his life he’s ever succeeded in being quiet. He didn’t speak when they asked, “What’s your name then?”, because the Templars who had collected him had forgotten. 

He didn’t speak when they begged, saying that he could trust them. He can still hear Irving, looking at him with a stern sort of caring that he’d gown to loathe, “We won’t hurt you. This is your home now.”

He didn’t speak even when they commanded him, swords on their chest plates gleaming as they snarled, “This is ridiculous, boy. Just spit it out!”

He was as quiet as quiet could be. Quiet enough that perhaps his father would like him. That he would take him back. 

It was a terrible six months, that time. It was almost like he died. After a few weeks people would stare right through him, like they were forgetting him even as they looked directly at him. Like he was a ghost. 

It was horrible, but at least it gave him a few days when he escaped. It took them that long to even notice that he was gone. Why wouldn’t it though? They didn’t even know his name. He was nothing but a slip of skin that ambled about among the living. 

Honestly, it's funny how quickly someone could change their tune. Before those six months everyone in the Circle thought that they wanted him to speak. That he was too quiet. 

Then he came back to the Circle knowing that the Templars who caught him, that had finally dragged words out of him in a tearful confession, were right. Knowing that his father would never take him back. That he could never go home. No matter how quiet he was. 

He came back to life, and then it all started again. The demand to be quiet and no way to get out. No matter how many times he tried. There were just men and women made of steel, stern and strong and commanding him to  _ be quiet. _ Be quiet like before. Be quiet like the dead. 

It never stopped. They spat it in his face. They tried to carve it into his skin with lashes and with strikes. They said it with their Smites and Silences. They said with their false assurances that they were here to help him, that he needed them as they crushed him underfoot. They said it with every heavy stone that the tower was made of, every stone that encased him like a living tomb. 

They even said it through the mouths of his friends. 

“Careful, Anders,” they said around little nervous laughs as they glanced at the Templars that were always there. Always in a corner or around a corner. Watching. Waiting to remind them that they needed permission to be living things.

They said it through his teachers. The never-ending warnings, the cautions of restraint, the reminders that they were all dangerous. That this is where they all belonged, because they were mages. 

“Don’t make trouble, Anders,” was their constant mantra, “Be grateful for what you have.”

They said it through Irving’s lips often enough. “Please, Anders. Don't be reckless. You make it hard for them to consider kindness."

They even said it through his lover occasionally.

“You have to be quiet, Anders,” was the breathless whisper against his lips as heated hands dragged over his skin and soft lips swallowed the keens of pleasure that he couldn’t keep at bay.

Because it would be trouble if someone heard. Because they were dangerous and didn’t have permission to be alive. To love. To do anything but be quiet like dead things.

He tried. He tried to be quiet then. For love. For a rebellion that he honestly thought he could get away with for a time. But he wasn’t good at being quiet. How could he be? He wasn't dead. He was  _ alive. _

He was never more sure of that when he was in love. His blood seemed to be made of fire and his heart, his whole body, was so stuffed full of  _ feeling  _ that he wanted to scream. And it wasn’t even just when they were having sex. It was even there in the secret smiles and warm looks and conversations about magical theory in the library. The soft brushes of skin as they passed in the halls. The way that the Templar’s watching didn’t seem to matter because he had someone else watching him just as intensely, and he finally wanted to be watched. To be obsessed over like he was the most captivating thing in the world. It all just filled him with so much  _ feeling _ that he wanted to go to the top of the tower and scream it out to the world. 

But that was dangerous. That wasn't allowed. So he tried to be quieter, even though he’d never felt more alive. 

He thought that nothing could ever outmatch the fire it lit in him. He thought he’d never feel more alive than when he was in love. 

He was discovering how wrong he was though, with the silence trying to slowly strangle him. As it tried to make him quiet and still like it was. 

He’d never been able to  _ hear  _ his blood boiling before. He’d never noticed how the groan of his teeth grinding sounded like mountains being dragged. He’d never noticed how he could sound like a storm of wind and thunder when his heart beat fast and his lungs bellowed.

Hate. Rage. Those were things that made him feel more alive in the darkness than love ever had. He’s beginning to think they might be the only things that will keep him alive. 

His mother was the prime example. Karl was another. Poor Mr. Wiggums was the ultimate example. 

Love wouldn’t save him from those who would silence him. Love only made him complacent. It made him content to stay in quiet places that would eventually make him quiet too. 

He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t.

He would burn with rage, with  _ life, _ and he would be unquenchable. 

They could say it as much as they wanted. However they wanted. He wasn’t going to listen. He wasn’t going to  _ be quiet. _ No matter what they did. No matter how many years they left him here. He wasn’t going to let them kill him. He wouldn't let himself be buried alive in stone.

He was going to _ get out. _

**Author's Note:**

> Listed to [Buried](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUtaZKmoD_g&ab_channel=UNSECRET) a lot while I wrote.


End file.
